Multiple Disability

Multiple disability is a term used for a person with a combination of disabilities.
e.g.- someone with both a sensory disability and a motor disability. 

Individual with multiple disabilities have more than one significant disability such as orthopedic impairment, sensory impairment and behavioural or emotional issues. 

It could be two different types of physical disabilities, two different mental disabilities or a combination of physical and mental disabilities. 

Common examples of multiple disabilities are intellectual disability and blindness, mental retardation and orthopedic impairment, locomotor disability and speech impairment.

Characteristics of Multiple Disabled Children 

• Difficulty in basic physical morality. 

• Child may experience fine motor deficits that can cause penmanship problems. 

• Child may have slow clerical speed. 

• Child may tend to forget skills through disuse.

• Child may have trouble generalising skills from one situation to another. 

• Child may lack high level thinking and comprehension skills. 

• Child may have poor problem solving skills. 

• Ability to engage in abstract thinking is limited. 

• Child may have difficulty locating the direction of sound. 

• Child may have difficulty learning about object and object relationship. 

• Child may lack maturity in establishing career goals. 

• Child may face problems in socialising with peers.

Problems faced by children with multiple disabilities 

Vision problems 

• Bump into things while walking 

• Complain of too much light 

• Eyes may look different from normal eyes 

• Tries to look at things very closely. 

Hearing problem 

• Respond only to particular sounds 

• May take a long time and repetitions to develop speech 

• Sometimes they may also show difficulty in balancing their body while walking in a straight line 

Learning problem 

• Due to combined loss of more than two disabilities, the rate and speed of learning of these children is very slow. 

Communication problem 

• Communication is the most significant affected area of children with multiple disabilities as they are unable to see or hear or follow the different ways of his peer groups and children activities. 

Posture and mobility 

• Over sight, hearing and body movements help us to move around without bumping into things, remember the ways to reach places or even to use our hands to hold and look at things. 

Odd behaviour 

• Most children with multiple disabilities show strange behaviours that are called self-stimulating behaviour.

Causes of Multiple Disabilities 

Pre-natal causes 

• Chromosomal abnormalities 

• Viral infections 

• Drug and alcohol used during pregnancy 

• Mother's malnutrition 

• Physical trauma to the mother 

Perinatal causes 

• Lack of oxygen supply to the baby's brain 

• Physical injury to the baby's brain 

• Contracted infection during birth 

Post-natal causes 

• Childhood infections like meningitis and encephalitis 

• Traumatic brain injury from an accident 

• Lead poisioning 

• Reactions to medication 

• Exposure to toxins 

• Other environmental conditions

Educational Provisions for children with multiple disabilities 

• Use of multi-sensory teaching approach 

• Teaching should make students active 

• Regular behaviour observation 

• Make students aware about their shortcomings 

• Focus on learning by doing individualized educational programme 

• Infrastructure according to the needs of students 

• Flexibility in evaluation 

• Regular PTMs 

• Vocational training